In competitive Madden, creativity is a part of what makes competing exciting (and addicting 😳). It increases the strategic depth of the game and puts more options in the hands of competitors. Which leads to engaging gameplay and awesome content for spectators.
What is “Formation Shift”?
It just dawned on me that this feature is over 15 years old! Some people may have never even heard of it (maybe even some current EA employees?). Not to mention, the folks that are familiar with it, may have actually forgotten about it 😬—I know I did for a bit. Nevertheless, Formation Shift is my favorite Madden feature of all time 😍.
Formation Shifting allowed you to take a play from one formation and bring (shift) it into another formation. It was first introduced in Madden 2005.
Madden NFL 2005 Cover Art
This opened up a TON of possibilities for the offense. It allowed you to do 2 key things.
- Add new plays and route combinations that weren’t previously available in a formation.
- Hide what plays you were really using. Essentially, you could be running the same play in up to 5 different formations.
How did it work?
You would pick a play from the play call screen (as usual). Once you reach the line of scrimmage, you could formation shift in 4 different directions… up, down, left, or right. Each direction would go to a different formation. So if you picked a play from Gun Doubles, you would perhaps be able to formation shift that play into ⬆️ Gun Bunch, ⬇️ Gun Trips TE, ⬅️ Gun Y Trips, ➡️ Gun Tight Slots HB Wk. The constraint here is that each formation could only be formation shifted to 4 other formations (5 total, including the one you originally came out in).
On the same note, you could also audible to a new play/formation, and shift back to the original formation that you came out in. This was the most common usage within competitive Madden… because you wanted to stick to some type of scheme. Let’s say your primary scheme is passing the ball out of Gun Bunch:
- You come out in any play from Gun Bunch.
- You audible to Gun Trips TE PA Shot Post.
- Then formation shift back to Gun Bunch.
You now have all the routes from PA Shot Post in Gun Bunch.
Example Formation Shift of PA Shot Post from Gun Trips TE into Gun Bunch.
Hopefully, that was a good introduction to Formation Shifting. The possibilities are endless once you start imagining different plays and the formations they could be used in. And hopefully, it’s apparent the level of creativity and flexibility that could be added to the offensive side of the ball.
side note: I don’t want to ask for too much, but formation shifting on the defensive side of the ball would be pretty sick too. Have you ever wanted to run a specific coverage or blitz from a formation with a different alignment or personnel?
Why was Formation Shift removed in the first place?
I’m not really sure. The consensus that I’m aware of was that it was too “glitchy”, or it caused too many bugs.
- In Madden 2005, formation shifting over and over and over (like 15–30 times rapidly before snapping the ball) would cause the defense to lose stamina. So by the time you called hike, the defense wouldn’t be able to defend ANYTHING… literally a free touchdown. This resulted in all competitive events being played with fatigue OFF.
- In Madden 2006, you were able to get running back routes (specifically flat routes to goto the outside WR position). When smart routed, these routes would extend upfield and become un-bumpable. So if the defense was in man and pressing, WRs would FLY off the line of scrimmage for a TD or big gain. This wasn’t as bad as the issue from Madden 2005, but casual players would definitely consider this to be “cheese” 🧀.
- In Madden 2007, you were able to created QB sneaks out of play action plays. Moreover, you could make the entire defense blitz if you formation shifted routes from a flea-flicker play.
Long story short, Formation Shifting adds tons of possibilities. So many possibilities, that I’m sure it was difficult to test all of the variations and the effects of formation shifting different types of plays (tosses, hand-offs, play action, options, etc). This led to several glitches in gameplay. I believe this is the reason Formation Shifting wasn’t carried over into the next generation Madden.
OR… perhaps when Madden transitioned to the newer consoles, Formation Shifting was just a feature that got de-prioritized and forgotten about?
Whatever the case, we’d like to see it in the game again EA 🙌 🙌 🙌!
Why bring Formation Shift back?
Player’s Perspective
Formation Shift adds a huge boost to creativity. And creativity keeps us engaged and coming back for more. We like to explore new possibilities and strategies. As a competitive Madden player, I enjoyed countless hours of sitting in practice mode with different playbooks… experimenting 🧪 with Formation Shift and the different route combinations I could create. When I finally settled on what I liked most, I was able to keep my offense “under wraps” for quite a while. Giving me a competitive advantage, a.k.a. increasing the “skill gap” between me and other players. Sure it might be obvious that I’m in the Gun Split Flex formation for example. But what isn’t obvious is that one of my favorite plays to run out of Gun Split Flex is actually a play from Gun 5WR Trio, that I formation shifted into Gun Split Flex. Further, it’s not obvious (unless you’ve spent a good amount of time looking at all the playbooks) what playbooks even have both of those formations. Last but not least, if someone is trying to copy your scheme, they’d have to work a little harder to figure out those additional layers of indirection 🤔.
Spectator’s Perspective
As a spectator and a fan of watching MCS events on YouTube, Twitch, ESPN, etc. There’s a better chance at seeing a greater variety of offenses and playbooks being used during tournaments. Is anyone one else tired of seeing a tournament full of people running the same exact playbooks and schemes? In the past several years of the Madden Championship Series (MCS), only a handful of playbooks have been used at the highest level of competition.
Madden Tournament Kiv vs. Killer Mike
Now to be honest, in competitive gaming, there will also be some sort of migration towards the “meta”, or the most effective tactics and strategies. However, similar to Madden 20’s superstar X Factors and Abilities, formation shifting adds another avenue for players to add their own personal twist.
Technical Perspective
As a software engineer (which I am aware is quite different than a game developer), I can imagine the headache that the Formation Shift feature can cause. However, I believe due to the frequency and ability to release patches, any issues caused by Formation Shift would be fixable. And that’s considering the worst-case scenario. Best-case is that the feature doesn’t cause any issues at all! Besides, this isn’t like older editions of Madden where you’re basically stuck with the one version of the game (or that you’ll end up having to play an entire competitive season with fatigue OFF). Being able to add new features/improvements/bugfixes on the fly makes the addition of Formation Shift much more feasible and low risk.
A Perfect Fit
Madden 20 introduced new “abilities” and player archetypes that made individual players stand-out. One of the archetypes for QBs was “Field General”. Ideally, Formation Shift would be included as a standard feature. But if not…
Formation Shift Master sounds like a perfect Tier 3 ability for Field General QBs.
I mention competitive Madden quite a bit throughout this post. However, other modes and motivations for playing Madden can benefit from Formation Shift. When Formation Shift was first marketed as a feature, it was deemed a tactic that real NFL coaches used. Running the same play or route concept from different formations. As a result, the Simulation Madden players would surely enjoy a feature that brings them closer to the real game. From an Arcade Mode standpoint, more plays, more possibilities, more fun… right? On the Competitive side of things, give us another layer of strategy that will keep us hooked on the game we know and love! Do it for the culture!